Is the Company 2011 Philharmonic DVD still happening?- Page 7

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/6/12 at 4:49pm

^^^^ Not even when I said it six posts back, darquek! Jeeze! Maybe it's true you Broadway Legend types have strange rules as to whom you acknowledge! (All of the above is entirely a joke.)

Thanks for the deconstruction of "Tick-Tock". I've never thought anything about its meaning, other than the punchlines. I do miss the number when it is omitted, but I'm so lyric oriented that I don't think too deeply about the meaning of instrumental music. Entirely to my own detriment, of course.

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/6/12 at 8:54pm

While we're deconstructing Tick Tock, I have a few more things to add.

What is the purpose of Tick Tock in the show? I have heard arguments over whether it is significant to the plot or not, and whether it counts as interpretive dance or as a proper dream ballet. I tend further towards the interpretive dance side- if the number were a dream ballet, it would be much more blatantly plot significant, and the script would carry some details to ensure a certain amount of specificity. Instead, it only indicates a dance, solo or otherwise. Other than the sex/love break, the dance shows off the dancer's skill more than it says anything about Bobby.

The music, however, tells the story. Look at the piece's title- "Tick Tock." It's something of a triple reference- tick tock of time passing (Robert's aging), and of the piece's signature tick-tock rhythm. Yet, the tick-tock itself also can be seen as an indication of the piece's sexuality in the first half- the married couples (in fact, OLDER married couples in the original staging) are not implied to have much in the way of a sex life, and when the dance shifts its focus to them, the ticking stops.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/6/12 at 11:04pm

"Tick Tock" can also be described as Robert "killing time." I don't think we ever think he is especially interested in April.

I'm sure you're right that it's interpretive dance; it makes no sense to me as a dream ballet.

Honestly, I always just thought the choreographer's girlfriend had to have a solo dance to keep her from quitting the show and returning to California.

But over time, I came to love the music and now the show seems incomplete without it. Of course, they could have just gone to black and then brought the lights up for "Barcelona" (and I take it some productions do just that), but I think something of the momentum of Act II is lost (along with the symbolic meanings you've listed for us).

Updated On: 9/6/12 at 11:04 PM

[darquegk]

Posted: 9/6/12 at 11:34pm

I feel like staging it as a dream ballet rather than an interpretive dance piece might work if one was creative with it- it's such a freeform piece with built in punchlines that one could do interesting things there.

But it almost feels to me like the momentum works equally well with and without it- you have a different punchline when it's "Poor Baby" coming after the butterfly monologue than "Tick Tock." "Tick Tock" gives us from the bedroom scene right into Bobby's sexual self-conflict. Otherwise, we have sort of the joke of Bobby eager to hop into bed, cutting right to Bobby, unfulfilled and insecure, in bed while April sleeps.

And of course, to make it work, you HAVE to play Company as a great sitcom, not as a terse dramedy.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/7/12 at 6:24pm

Otherwise, we have sort of the joke of Bobby eager to hop into bed, cutting right to Bobby, unfulfilled and insecure, in bed while April sleeps.

If you go with that joke, you open up all the Bobby-is-secretly-gay nonsense which, IMO, does the play a disservice.

***

I'm confused. You seem to have "Tick Tock" leading into "Poor Baby". In the published script and in my mind, "Tick Tock" leads into "Barcelona". The second chorus of "Poor Baby" always followed the butterfly speech.

Or has the script been changed? Or am I misreading your posts?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 9/7/12 at 6:40pm

That's how it's always been, you're right, in both scripts.

(Of course Act II in particular is rather different in that audio of the Boston try out. I wanna say Poor Baby opens the act, but have to check--What Would We Do Without You is the penultimate song, etc, etc. That audio is funny--for a long time I subscribed to the belief that Hal did sell out by cutting and replacing Happily Ever After. That was more when I was a cynical teenager. Now, I see that it simply didn't work, as much as I love the song--oddly it's one of the Sondheim songs I sing in the shower the most--. When the song ends on the audio botleg you can literally hear the audience completely unsure how to react and comments like "is that it?" etc, lol)

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 9/7/12 at 6:42pm

Thank, Eric. I haven't heard that sound tape, and I enjoyed your account.